The Weekend

Dear Daughter came home this weekend and we got to do a lot of crafting together. It was great :D It was also moms birthday - "Happy Birthday" Mom!!!!! We visited with her over the weekend too. It was a very nice visit, and gonna have to stay longer next time!

Now because the recipients haven't received their gifts yet, I can only show teasers of what we did. Once they get them I promise to show the whole thing.

 Daughter finding she really LIKES playing with the Dremel!

 Making one of three stamps for brother's gift.

 for my sister

 another for my sister...

 and another...

My sister is loved, cuz there is about five (?) more little bitties left to do.

I cant wait to show what we did, have been working on my sister's gift for a LONG time, and is way past due. The gift for Dear Son/Brother, is just way too fun... gonna have to make one for me!

My Favorite Dinnerware

A fellow blogger friend at "My Simple Life" had blogged about how one of her favorite cups had "mysteriously" gone missing, and then finding a replacement on ebay. I have been trying to do this myself, but evidently mine are hard to find! $50 per piece!!!! HAH and I complained when they were $15 for 2!!! But I love them, and they make me laugh, and really - wouldn't this make a fun table???

Bolded words are the links... I gotta play with this some more! The links didnt show at all before!!! I prolly should quit messing with the "advanced" settings and just go for the template...

Giraffe bowl and dinner plate

Hippo bowl and salad plate

The only complete set I have! Elephant bowl, dinner plate, and salad plate

Frog bowl and salad plate

Really, with these glasses, I think would make a wonderful "Tablescape". Sigh, I will get there eventually! Until then I will stay satisfied with having a nice "dessert" table :)

Antenna

I am very proud of my hubby! He made us a Double Bay Gray-Hoverman antenna from PVC, 1/2"x1/2" square wire mesh field fencing, 8 gauge copper wire, stainless steel screws, and a balun. (All of which we had lying around - yep even the balun!) He used plans from the internet, just Google "Gray-Hoverman Antenna" and you will get lots to choose from. And will wonders never cease, it WORKS!

Here is ours!!!

This thing is WAY up there, so I zoomed in as best I could. but you can kinda sort of see the fencing... maybe? 

All I can say is though, it works beautifully, and the stations are approximately 60 miles away! Good job Hubby!


PS - don't ask me what a "balun" is - all I know it is an electrical doohickey that helps with the process... and THATS after looking it up!!!!

Old Friends

This must be the week for old friends. I got to hear (briefly) from a childhood friend, and a friend who "disappeared" right before Thanksgiving.

My Childhood friend, who has been my friend since we were 14? 15? somewhere in there! Ok, WELL over 20 years! She contacted me through email, it is always great to hear from her. And, yes, I am still alive Missy :D Somehow, we have to find a way to get together for longer than an hour every other year! I know the odds are slim, and will stay satisfied with the emails back and forth, but its always nice to dream!

Now my friend who disappeared, well she lives clear across the country, so there is not a chance of being able to see her! She fell off the radar when she had computer problems, but she is back! Woot!

Do you have an old friend you haven't heard from? Friends are the family you get to CHOOSE ;) take a moment and try to reach out, you just might make someones day so much brighter! I know mine is :)

Love you Missy and MMIMO.

Just a "Happy"...

From daughters last visit

But you really need to zoom in...

Issues

One of the many side effects of my "issues" is that I am slowly going blind. Many days I cannot see well at all simply because of glare, sometimes my eyes are not able to adjust to any glare and so the world turns a painful white. This has caused quite a few unintentional adventures and new challenges for me.

For instance… have you ever tried to eat in the dark? One evening we ate a rice dish, and of course, my eyes weren’t doing too good so I had my eye covers on. It took FOREVER for me to be able to eat! I couldn’t figure out exactly how much food I had on my fork! So some bites I had NO food on the fork at all (it would fall off – you try to stab rice!) or I would have too much! A challenge I did not anticipate, though I did get the hang of it after a while. It didn’t occur to me till later… get a bowl! Duh.

We have lived in this house for over 15 years, I feel I know my way around the property pretty good. I go outside to hang clothes on the laundry line, blind, and stumble. Then realized when I stumbled I had gotten totally turned around and wasn’t sure exactly where I was! Normally that’s not too big of a deal; except, we have a lot of cactus in our yard. Sigh. Thankfully, I am still able to cheat a little and peaked around my eye covers so as to orient myself. I figured that bit of pain was a LOT better than the lingering pain of cactus needles that I would not be able to see to get out, and hubby wouldn’t be home for several hours yet!

But I will not always be able to “cheat” and so am taking these learning experiences to heart, and do my best to alleviate what I can NOW. I am grateful for this time TO learn, and it not be a sudden life changing experience. I refuse to quit doing what I normally do, hang laundry outside, EAT, clean, wash dishes, pick out my own clothes, haha, pour my own tea! (Whole other issues there!) Key words in there are “what I normally do”. I am just learning a “new normal”.

I have a feeling that “puffy paint” is going to be my new friend. Did you know most microwaves have smooth touch screen controls? I never paid any attention to it, till I had to warm up my coffee. I KNOW how the keypad is arranged, but I still need to orient myself as to WHERE I am in relation to the keys! Puffy paint outlining the buttons will help. Also, getting canned pumpkin pie filling instead of pineapple chunks is quite a big difference when wanting a nice tangy snack. So I had to come up with some quick pumpkin pie filling recipes! A little puffy paint on the cans would have helped tremendously.

And so, with that said, I am off to the cupboards to figure out a marking system…

Back

Hello Blogland

I truly have not intentionally ignored my own blog. Between problems with the internet, (chewed through cords seems to affect the quality of connection… who knew?) and health issues, well needless to say, I haven’t got much done!

I was going to wait for my daughter to come home for a visit to post more to my blog, but I would still have the same issues once she is gone. So with a little tweaking here and there so that I can see what I am typing, and after several attempts, actually get the subject of the pictures that I am trying to take into the view finder!

SO, am back, for better or worse. I won’t be posting daily, but it shouldn’t be once a month either! Haha, at least that’s the plan…